Paladins - How to play/make them?

[Old Drew Id]

I agree with the other posters: your main role should be the secondary fighter. As a straight warrior, you should try to balance with the existing fighter and the archer. Generally straight warriors in d20 have 1 of 2 possible builds: either the guy who can deal a ton of damage or the guy who can survive a ton of attacks (either through high AC or high HP). Whichever one your existing tank fighter is, be the other one.

---Equipment---
If you're going to be the damage king, then get the biggest two-handed weapon you can buy and enchant the heck out of it. Look into Weapons of Legacy as an interesting alternative, plus the Shining Blade of Heironeous prestige class for ways to boost your weapon. You want to be able to crit something and do over a hundred points of damage.
If you go the high AC route, be prepared to spend more on your armor and shield than on your weapon. Get your AC up so high that almost nothing can hit you (and then boost your Con up to handle the hit when it does come.)

Also, don't skimp on armor for your mount if you have one (and a lance as well.)

---Stats---
Strength, Con, and Charisma are your main stats. Wisdom is not as important as it may seem and anything over a 12 is wasted. By the time you need a 13 to cast 3rd level spells, you can have an item to give you a +2 boost, and your saving throw DC's won't matter because 99% of your spells will be buff spells, not enemy-targetting spells. Also, tank Dex to a max of 12, and probably no higher than 10. Your armor and your mount will save you, not your Dex. Int can also be tanked as well.

---Race---
Human is best. Dwarf would get you the Con but hurt your Cha. Any other race is hurting your key stats.

---Skills---
You should have a low Int, so few skill points. You should pick one key skill and just max it out. If you have that shugenja in the group, his Cha is probably higher than yours anyway, so he is probably the party face, so don't feel you have to bump any Cha skills. Concentration might be good since you'll be casting during melee a lot. Intimidate can be fun, though.

---Feats---
If mounted combat is common in your campaign, focus on Ride and on good equipment for a mount, including the feats or prestige classes to bump up your mount. (Celestial Mount from BoED is good.)

For other feats, check out Divine Feats, p 77 in Complete Divine. Use your turning attempts for something other than undead. Or if you are facing a lot of undead in the campaign, go for Quicken Turning so that you can turn undead and attack in the same round.

If you do a lot of smiting, check out Extra Smiting from Complete Warrior p98. It's worth 2 extra smite attempts per day.

Finally Leadership is a no-brainer with a high Charisma. your cohort can be a cleric to heal you, a rogue to handle your skill checks for you, an arcane caster to buff you, or another warrior to watch your back.

---Classes---
If you are the type that just has to multi-class, take the Knight Training feat from Dragon magazine 330, so you can multiclass into one other class (I would recommend fighter, if at all.)

For prestige classes, go for the combat-focused ones from Complete Divine: Hospitaler is good for extra feats. Pious Templar is great all around. Shining Blade of Heironeous makes your weapon into a mega-weapon, which is nice. Warpriest is not bad, but the specific abilities that it offers aren't that great.

If you go the mounted route, check out Wild Plains Outrider in Complete Adventurer for a quick 3-level prestige class or Cavalier in Complete Warrior.

---Party Dynamic---
With a shugenja in the group, you could go the "paladin as samurai" direction and fit in nicely there.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

It looks like there are two questions in the intro:

What role to fill in the party?

and

How to build your paladin to fill it?

For the first, it looks like your party is short on two things:
1. There is no dedicated healer (though I think Shugenja get some healing spells--the earth shugenja in the minis game gets cure moderate wounds).
2. There is only one other stand up fighter and at least three other characters who need someone to keep the bad guys off their backs.

So, it looks like the best role to fill in the group is a blocker/backstop to keep the bad guys off the casters and the archer and to give the rogue a second flanking buddy and, at the same time be prepared to step in with healing when needed (which will be fairly often).

Now, on to question 2:

The limited healing in your group suggests a defensively oriented build that makes sure to pack enough of a punch that your enemies can't ignore you and go after the squishies in the back. Sword and shield is a good way to go this.

So, stats. Others have pointed out that paladins need quite a few stats and I think correctly identified the priorities: strength and charisma, con, then wisdom, then dex, and finally int. If you're on 28 point buy, I would recommend:

Str 14, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 15

Ordinarily, I would probably focus on strength rather than charisma, but you need to be able to crank out the lay on hands, so I left charisma with the odd point to boost.

Now, equipment. You are going to cover your relatively low dexterity with the heaviest armor you can afford. Splint mail when you start, moving on to fullplate as soon as you can afford it. You'll also want a heavy shield. For a weapon, you've got four solid choices:
A. Longsword
B. Battle Axe
C. Warhammer
D. Scimitar

The first three are mechanically similar. D8 damage and a crit that adds 10% to your damage total (assuming a 100% confirmation rate). The scimitar is also a solid choice though. As a paladin, you should be getting a lot of bonuses on your damage--strength, divine might, smite evil, etc, so the extra damage increase from criticals can really add up.

Eventually, you'll want to get a cloak of charisma, vest of resistance, magic weapon, armor, and shield, an amulet of health, an ioun stone for wisdom, possibly gloves of dexterity (+6 if you get mithral fullplate); if you have the opportunity, armbands of might would be a great choice too.

Finally, the feats. There are quite a few solid lineups, but this is what I would probably do:

1. Power Attack, St. Cuthbert's Smite*
3. Extra Smiting
6. Divine Might
9. Extra Smiting (or improved critical if you went with the scimitar)

*From Dragon Magazine--changes smite evil to smite evil or chaos and gives one extra smite per day.

I like the smite evil ability

Another solid lineup:
1. Shield Specialization, Power Attack
3. Extra Smiting
6. Divine Might
9. Shield Ward

One that is good but probably won't work too well for you since it depends upon moving and your party will need you to stand still (and between them and the bad guys)

1. Power Attack, Mounted Combat
3. Ride By Attack
6. Spirited Charge
9. Divine Might

Now, on to skills, odds are good you'll only be getting three skill points per level, so what should you spend them on.

1. You'll want some ride. Ideally, you should be able to get a DC 10 ride check on a roll of a 1 so you can always fight with your mount when you get one. Even if you don't have the mounted combat feats, the added mobility and firepower provided by a mount will come in handy and even double damage lance charges are sweet (especially with smite and divine might).

2. Sense Motive. You do want to stay a paladin right? It's also a very useful skill. If people have difficulty lying to you, then you can better weigh your options. Plus, 5 ranks give you a synergy with diplomacy

3. Diplomacy. Making friends and influencing people is useful since you won't be going behind their back all the time. Talking the owner into letting you investigate his shop beats breaking in the back door... if you're a paladin.

4. Knowledge: Religion. You should know at least the basics of your faith. This is probably a good skill to split with ride if you don't plan on focussing your character on mounted combat.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

How to make one?

After reading and participating in several Paladin threads on these boards, I hav come to conclusion that the first step in playing a Paladin is to talk to the DM about how he views their LG ethical/code demands. You and your DM need to be on the same page when your PC becomes involved in a situation that could impact the Paladin's powers.

There are 2 basic types:

Old School- merciless in their struggles against evil, they often act as judge, jury and executioner. They are the zealots who are the vengeful wrath of the divine personified, and seldom believe that evil beings can change. They may even kill someone who has surrendered because they have already (as in, pre-surrender) adjudicated that being as beyond redemption and fit only for swift execution.

New School- powerful foes of evil, they nonetheless value mercy above almost all other virtues, and believe in the power of redemption for even the most evil of opponents. They are the most likely to turn the other cheek, or accept a surrender. Once in their custody, a prisoner is safe from anyone until they go through that Paladin.

If your DM sees Paladins in his campaign as being New School, but your vision is Old School, you'll soon find your PC being a Fighter...

How to play one?

First, see above.

Second, find an archetype that fits the LG mentality. There are many- the peasant inspired by god to take up arms in defense of the meek, or of her country; the mercenary who has "seen the light;" a holy man sent on a martial crusade...

Third, equip your PC. While the above selections are fine, I have some other ideas about weapon choices:

A) Pick stuff that is appropriate for the PC's theme/archetype. I once played one who was a peasant who had grown up as a stonemason. That PC used a Maul- it was familar to the PC who had used similar tools daily at work- and had a Hvy Pick as a backup for similar reasons. Also, since peasants were not allowed to use swords, it fit the PC's culture.

B) I prefer blunt weapons for PCs linked to the divine, since one of the major duties of such PCs is dealing with undead. While some undead take limited damage from slashing weapons, they ALL take full damage (AFAIK) from blunt weapons. While simple, the Morningstar does both blunt and piercing damage- useful and a bargain. Hammers can be thrown, and fit well with Dwarven paladin concepts. The Flails can be used to trip or disarm. Mauls simply do a lot of damage, and if you take the XWP, can be used 1 handed, just like a Bastard Sword.

C) I prefer a Sword & Board build for survivability, and have had fun with PCs that used spiked shields as off-hand weapons and take the Shield Bash feat.

D) All that said, if you're using the DCv1, you'll also find a lot of feats that make Polearms more viable than in any other form of D&D. EVER. I've tried a few polearm builds using those feats, and have found them to be quite effective- a Githzerai monk with a Bisento (1d12 x 2, slashing, reach) and a lot of AoO's was nearly as effective in combat as the party's Barbarian at dishing out damage, better than the Barbarian at keeping opponents getting to the back row spellcasters, and rarely took hits.

 

[nittanytbone]

You need more healers and you need another tank.

The obvious solution IMHO is a melee cleric, not a paladin -- Cleric of Kord, War & Strength domains will be laying far more of a beat-down than a paladin. And he has spells to boot.

But if you're committed to a paladin, so be it. Normally, paladins make great multiclass dips. Really, past 5th or 6th level, there is nothing to keep you in the class other than special mount advancement (yawn -- other than for your gnomes and halflings who can bring their war dogs everywhere, how often do you get to bring that heavy warhorse into the dungeon?) and some minor bennies like poor spell progression and smite damage.

However, in this case, you're also the only one that can turn undead. Normally paladin turning is useful only for fueling divine feats, but if you're the only turner in the party, it might be useful someday. So keeping paladin levels (or going into something like War Priest) might be a good idea, in this case.

This is what I would suggest for feats for a human tough tank type:

1 - Nymph's Kiss (more SP lets you be diplomatic and a healer, +2 to cha-based checks like turning)
Human Bonus Feat - Power Attack
3 - Divine Might (cha to damage as a free action - yum)
6 - Sacred Vengeance (rather than turning undead, doing extra damage can be helpful, especially if you do decide to multiclass)

From there on out you can expand whatever feat tree you like best -- more Power Attack feats, or perhaps the mounted combat tree. Wear plate mail and smack around with a greatsword (for superior damage output) or a long sword + shield (defensively minded).

An interesting variant is the halfling war-dog rider (or gnome, for that matter -- gnomes are superior ability score wise as +2 con is very handy, but halflings have some nice PrCs). Search for the "Supermount" thread on the WOTC optimization boards for some crazy builds. The advantage is that you can take your mount with you anywhere. The disadvantage is that you're tight on feats, and the -2 to str makes it difficult to get up to 13+ str (key for power attack).

 

[Monkey Boy]

I wouldn't waste resources trying to make a paladin that can effectively turn undead.

I would recommend building a defensive tank. Focus on not getting hit - your second tank and your job is to support the fighter and stop the bad guys getting to the others.

Look into maxing out your AC. Feats like combat expertise and divine shield are good.

As has been noted Paladin doesn't have much going for it after say level 4. I'd aim for a prestige class from Complete Divine ASAP. They have both a better 'Paladin" feel and greater utility than more levels of the base class.

In all honesty I don't think any spells are worth the level investment in the paladins list. With that said there is no reason to have a high WS. Dump it, put the points into int and when needed get that AC as high as possible with combat expertise.

Defense, smite and max AC. Use wands to heal. That's what I'd do.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

My Paladin's preferred method of turning undead is to invoke Divine Might.

Turning is really unnecessary. Anything you are likely you successfully turn, even with your sky high Cha, is something that could be chopped up in 1-2 rounds. I suppose that it could be valuable if you are overrun by weak undead, but Cleave and Fireballs can handle that as well.

The advantages of sticking straight Paladin are:

(1) Lay on Hands: This is the best dire emergency healing in the game until the party cleric is high enough level to cast Heal, better than any other healing spell. Wands are good enough when the fight is over, but what are you going to do when someone needs 30 or 45 or 60 points of healing right now.

(2) Smite Evil: This adds up and it is bread & butter for smackdowns, and every Paladin level boosts it up further -- not that you necessarily care about smackdowns, but this is a vote for its potency. Extra Smiting. I know. You are thinking "That sounds boring. I already have 1-2 Smite Evils." At least that is what I thought when it was suggested to me. But this feat works. It gives the Paladin a lot of focus as absolutely fearsome against evil -- only the most superoptimized heavy offensive Fighter can compete with a Paladin using Smite Evil and Divine Might in combination.

(3) Spellcasting: Not necessarily a huge deal, but I think that getting up to a level where you get a 2nd level spell is really nice. You really really want at least 6 Paladin levels so you can cast Bull's Strength and Remove Paralysis (in an emergency) from a scroll. The 3rd and 4th level Paladin spells are nothing to sneeze, although it is a long road there.

(4) Paladin Mount: You want at least 8 Paladin levels to get that next boost to your mount. Playing levels 5-10, the special mount can give most party members a run for their money in terms of raw combat effectiveness, including the Paladin himself. Yes, the mount fades in significance at higher levels, but it is a dominating presence early on.

 

[MithrasRahl]

This is definetly more help and info that I ever hoped to get, thanks to everyone who contributed.

 

[Quartz]

Definitely multiclass to Fighter for two levels just for the feats. You'll want to get to L4 as a Paladin to get the Turn Undead to power divine feats. You might also want a couple of levels of Knight. Then pick a Prestige class - Hospitaler is good if you've got good Wis, and so is Divine Crusader if you've got good Cha. Pal 4 / Ftr 2 / Kt 4 / DC 10 is pretty nasty. If your GM allows it, Pal 4 / Ftr 2 / Kt 4 / DC 2 / Hosp 8 is even nastier.